March 31, 2024, Easter Sunday, Joy and a Little Chaos in the Morning – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ March 31, 2024 ♦ Leave a comment

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If you read over the accounts of the Passion and Resurrection in all four gospels, you would notice a great many things, but there is one thing might jump out at you. When it comes to Easter morning, they don’t read anything like a newspaper story or a scholarly account in some history textbook. Not at all. It’s more like when all your children are trying to tell you what happened at school on a particularly exciting and eventful day, all at once, and all their words pour out in a breathless rush. Their stories kind of tumble over each other. The tomb was empty in the morning, that one thing is for sure, and the huge stone was rolled away – because there was an earthquake – or an angel did it – I don’t know, it was already rolled away when we got there. And an angel? For sure there was an angel, in gloriously white robes – no, two angels, it was – or one, maybe. And who was there? The women – well Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, Joanna, Salome – all the women.

Mark’s gospel is the earliest of the four, and he seems to be the best at capturing the very first reactions of the very first people to arrive at the tomb on that first Easter morning. The women, he tells us, were struck dumb and senseless. Terror and amazement seized them, Mark writes. Later they found Jesus and worshiped him joyfully. Later they obeyed the angel and brought the good news to the other disciples. But first of all, they were simply afraid. And who can blame them? Nobody really saw this coming, even though we know Jesus had been telling them what was about to happen. They’d been listening, but it was beyond anyone’s imagination to understand what Jesus meant, until they had seen it with their own eyes. They really couldn’t understood beyond the part about the arrest and suffering and death, and even that came as a shock to them when it actually happened.

There is something delightfully authentic about all the joyful chaos of these gospel stories; to me, it rings absolutely true.

But another thing that you might not have noticed is how many people were involved in preparing Jesus’ body for burial. We read the Passion from Mark last Sunday, and in that story we read how, two days before the Passover, Jesus had dinner in the town of Bethany. And at that dinner we read how Jesus’ good friend Mary, the sister of Lazarus whom Jesus had raised from the dead, took a jar of incredibly expensive perfume, and broke it, and poured it over his head. People were scandalized at the waste, but Jesus defended her. “Leave her alone,” he said, “She has done a beautiful thing. She has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.”

Then, on Friday, we read how after the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a respected member of the council, bravely went to Pilate for permission to take the body of Jesus from the cross. And Nicodemus, – another cautious believer among the religious authorities – brought 75 pounds – or it might have been 100 pounds – of spices – a lot of spices – and the two men wrapped Jesus’ body in linen along with the spices. And they laid Jesus’ body, honorably prepared, in Joseph’s own tomb – a tomb in which no one had ever been buried.

And then there are the women. After the crucifixion, it was the beginning of the Sabbath (because the Sabbath begins at sunset.) After they had seen where Jesus’ body was buried, the women, grieving and spent with weeping, went home and prepared the spices that would be needed to properly prepare Jesus’ body for burial. They seemed to assume that the men wouldn’t have quite done the job, so they took it into their own hands to gather everything that would be needed, and at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning they went to the tomb to take care of their Lord’s body.

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Like Mary of Bethany, like Joseph and Nicodemus, like the faithful women, we have done everything we could to honor Jesus’ death over the past three days. On Thursday, we recalled the words he spoke at his last supper with his disciples. We shared the bread and wine of the sacrament of his Presence, as he told us to do. We followed his example of humility by washing one another’s feet, as he did for his disciples. On Friday we walked one last time in the footsteps of Christ’s Passion, and we bowed ourselves before his cross. On Saturday, we sat in the darkness and silence of the tomb. This has all been our way of anointing Christ in his death.

This morning, maybe some of us find ourselves a little tired and frazzled with all the activity and preparation of this week, not to mention the demands and stresses of daily life, which don’t take a break just because it’s Holy Week. Maybe for some of us there is a little lingering sadness from our long contemplation of Christ’s suffering and death. But this morning, the sun has risen and the church is full of the sweet scents of flowers and incense. This morning, we come to the tomb one more time and we find it empty – except for an angel – or maybe it’s two angels! And this morning, we receive the message to go and meet Jesus, because he has gone ahead of us. He is not in the tomb, he has risen, as he said. He has gone on ahead of us, and he is waiting for us to join him.

Because the victory and joy of Easter didn’t stay in the tomb, and they aren’t meant to stay within the four walls of the Church. There is a whole world out there that has never seen the light of this sunrise. There are so many people living without hope or purpose, so many people who have given up on faith as just a foolish delusion for little children and old people.

Well, here we are, little children and old folks both, and we know better. We know the power of Christ to sustain us in our sorrow, to guide us in our confusion, to heal our hurts and to lift up our hearts. We have fed upon the bread of his Presence and joined our voices with angels and archangels and all the choruses of the heavenly realms in praise.

We know the tomb is empty.

We know the sun has risen with healing in its wings.

We know that all things are being made new.

Easter has dawned, and the dark night is coming to an end. Jesus has gone on ahead of us, and he is waiting for us to join him – out in the world where the hope of Easter is so much needed. Let us follow where our Lord has led, and proclaim the joyful chaos of our story.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! +